The Cautious Concierge
by RockSunner
Summary: This is an AU from TPP. What if Violet had disabled the harpoon gun before giving it to Carmelita? Possible spoilers for TE.
1. Harpoon Gun Won't Fire

**The Cautious Concierge**

This will be a short AU set during TPP. The standard disclaimer applies: I don't own these characters; Daniel Handler does.

**Chapter 1**

"Are you sure that a harpoon gun ought to be given to a little girl?" Frank had asked, or maybe it was Ernest. As Violet rode up the elevator with the harpoon gun, the question kept nagging in her mind. She needed to give herself time to think, so she punched all the buttons of the elevator on the way to the rooftop sunbathing area.

No, she wasn't sure that a harpoon gun ought to be given to a little girl, especially to one so terrible as Carmelita Spats. Violet decided to do something about it. She tied back her hair with her ribbon and examined the device with an inventor's eye. Before she reached the rooftop she had figured out how to jam the mechanism so the gun would not fire.

She put the jammed harpoon gun into the hands of the evilly smiling brat just as the huge clock in the lobby began to chime,. It seemed to be telling her that despite the precaution she had just taken, everything was still going to go WRONG, WRONG, WRONG, WRONG, WRONG... 


	2. Crows Don't Get Shot

**Chapter 2**

That evening after their concierge duties were over, Violet and her siblings tried to make sense of the events of the day.

"It seems to me that you made a wise decision to jam the harpoon gun, Violet," said Klaus. "The sugar bowl will probably be delivered tonight by crow. If the villains can't harpoon the crows, then it will be delivered into the proper hands."

"We hope," said Sunny.

"Well, Olaf, Carmelita, and Esme are on the wrong side for sure," said Violet. "I think I did the right thing by thwarting them."

"Then it won't matter which side wanted the bird paper hung," said Klaus. "If the crows aren't shot they won't fall into it."

"Or door," said Sunny, meaning that it didn't matter which side wanted the door to the laundry room turned into a Vernacularly Fastened Door if no sugar bowl fell into it.

As they were talking, they heard a noise overhead. They looked up and saw a tall, spidery individual descending from the lobby ceiling by a rope.

"Are you Frank, or are you Ernest?" Klaus asked warily.

"Dewey," said the man. "I'm the third of the Denouement Triplets. Follow me, we have important matters to discuss."

The Baudelaires were suspicious but they decided to listen to him after he recited part of a poem about blind men and an elephant, one of their father's favorite poems. They followed Dewey out the front doors of the Hotel.

"What do you do for the V.F.D.?" Violet asked.

"I'm a sub-sub-librarian, managing and indexing the secret catalog of all the evidence of villainy the V.F.D. has ever collected. I'm hoping that all of you, after the trial on Thursday, will agree to stay here and help me with it."

"Trial?" asked Sunny.

"Speaking of the trial, here come some old friends of yours. They can tell you all about it," said Dewey.

A taxi pulled up and out jumped two familiar people wearing strange sunglasses.

"Jerome Squalor!" cried Klaus.

"Justice Strauss!" cried Violet.

"J.S.!" cried Sunny.

"Good news, Dewey," Justice Strauss called. "We weren't able to see the crows arrive with our dark Vision Furthering Devices, but our taxi driver was able to assure us that the villains didn't manage to harpoon them. Your precaution of the Vernacularly Fastened Door won't be needed after all."

The Baudelaires and the two J.S.'s had a reunion in which the two adults explained how they had been looking for the children and researching injustice, in preparation for a massive trial by the High Court on Thursday in which all the villainy's greed and treachery would be exposed.

It all sounded very good, but the Baudelaires knew many things that sound good which are too good to be true, like mail from Nigeria promising a share of millions of dollars to you if you help them get money out of the country, or magic beans that will turn into a beanstalk leading to a castle in the clouds, or even the promise of a birthday party with ponies.

When they entered the hotel again, they realized they were right. There were Count Olaf, Esme Squalor, and Carmelita Spats, looking very angry.

"Where is the sugar bowl?" hissed Count Olaf. "Hand it over at once!" 


	3. Dewey Doesn't Die

**Chapter 3**

"We don't have the sugar bowl," said Dewey boldly. "It's being taken to a safe place."

"Then tell me who has it and where it's being taken, Ernest," Olaf said.

"I'm not Ernest," said Dewey.

"Frank, then," said Olaf. "You ought to style your hair differently so I can tell you apart."

"I'm not Frank. I'm Dewey Denouement."

"He's a legendary figure, just like Verdi," said Olaf.

"I'm real, just like Verdi," said Dewey.

"Carmelita, give me the harpoon gun," ordered Olaf. "I'm going to make this legendary figure talk."

"No," said Carmelita. "First you have to teach me to spit like a real cowboy superhero soldier pirate, like you promised."

"I said I'd teach you if you harpooned the crows," retorted Olaf.

"It's not my fault the stupid harpoon gun didn't work," said Carmelita.

"It didn't work because you didn't use it properly," said Olaf.

"I'll prove it," said Carmelita. "Here, take the stupid thing and try it yourself."

"I'll do just that," said Olaf, grabbing the weapon.

"You should be nicer to that darling little girl or I'll be unhappy with you," said Esmé crossly.

"Thank you for the harpoon gun, Carmelita," said Olaf with pretended courtesy. "I'll teach you to spit later."

Though Olaf was getting tired of his girlfriend and her protégée (a word which here means "the bratty child she doted on"), Olaf still found Esmé and her money useful. Since Carmelita had given up the harpoon gun without too much of a scene, Olaf didn't press the point.

"Now Dewey, if that's who you really are," said Olaf. "Tell me where the sugar bowl went or I'll harpoon you."

Violet Baudelaire, confident that the harpoon gun was harmless, stepped in the way. "You'll have to harpoon me first."

"And me," said Klaus, also stepping forward.

"Me," said Sunny.

"Get out of the way or I'll pull the trigger," threatened Olaf.

"You won't do that," said Violet, stepping even closer.

"What else can I do?" said Olaf.

Just then they heard a loud cough and Mr. Poe entered the room. Olaf pushed the harpoon gun into the hands of the Baudelaires, who dropped it. The weapon triggered but Violet's sabotage held: no harpoon fired.

"See, I told you it didn't work," said Carmelita.

"What's going on here?" demanded Mr. Poe. "I came here to investigate a bank robbery and I need my rest. Concierges should not be talking so loudly with guests in the lobby in the middle of the night."

"Sorry, sir," said Klaus, relieved that Mr. Poe was fooled by their disguise.

"You've lost, Count Olaf," said Justice Strauss. "You won't see the sugar bowl until it is introduced as surprise evidence against you at the trial."

"Surprise evidence at the trial?" Olaf echoed.

"Oh dear, I suppose I shouldn't have mentioned it, but there's nothing you can do about it anyway," said Justice Strauss.

"Well, I'll just have to wait and take my chances at the trial then," said Count Olaf in a surprisingly unworried tone. "Come along, Esmé and Carmelita. We'll bide our time for now."

As the three villains walked out, they were joined by three henchpersons who had been lurking on the side of the room. The Baudelaires recognized them as Hugo, Colette, and Kevin.

As Count Olaf entered the elevator, he turned and stared at the Baudelaires. "I know who you are and I'll get you into my clutches later."

The last thing they heard him say as the elevator doors were closing was, "Surprise evidence at the trial... Ha!" 


	4. Quagmires Don't Stay Away

**Chapter 4**

Poe went back up to his hotel room after delivering his complaint about noise in the lobby. The Baudelaires, Dewey, and the two J.S's remained.

"Olaf recognized you, so your cover as concierges has been blown," Dewey told the Baudelaires. "I suggest that you spend Wednesday with me in the underwater catalog."

"How get there?" Sunny asked.

"Follow me and I'll show you," said Dewey.

"See you on Thursday, Baudelaires," said Justice Strauss. "I'm going to meet with my fellow Justices to prepare for the trial. They'll be so excited to hear about these new developments."

"I'll see you on Thursday, too," said Jerome. "I have a few finishing touches for my book before I put it into evidence at the trial."

Dewey and the children went down into the basement.

"Room 020 is Library Science, and that has a secret passage connecting to the catalog," said Dewey. "While I'm down here I'll collect my Vernacularly Fastened Door lock since we don't need it any more."

After Dewey entered the codes and took back the lock, he led the way to the catalog. It was a fascinating place, laid out exactly like the hotel but on its side like the reflection in the pond. Every room was full of files.

"This is so wonderful!" exclaimed Klaus, his eyes shining. "I don't know where to start reading first."

Sunny found a small kitchen and began to prepare breakfast. Violet found an equipment room and set about repairing broken V.F.D. devices. They spent many hours working happily, too excited to sleep.

When they took a break for lunch, Violet said, "We can't forget about our mission as flaneurs. We need to let Kit and the others know whether it's safe to come here or not,"

"It's pretty obvious that things are going very well, isn't it?" Klaus asked. "We should tell them to come on."

"I'm not so sure," said Violet. "Olaf didn't seem worried about the trial."

"Said 'Ha'," Sunny pointed out.

"Naturally he would pretend not to be worried," said Dewey.

"I think he laughed because Justice Strauss spilled information about the surprise evidence," said Klaus.

"We still don't know all the different J.S.'s who have been leaking information," said Violet. "Who told Mr. Poe we were arriving by submarine yesterday? Which J.S. invited the teachers from Prufrock? Who was the J.S. in the coffee shop?"

"We can't get to the bottom of everything," said Dewey, "There's too much smoke and mirrors. The main question is should we tell Kit to come back, and I think we should."

"Things are as safe here as they are going to get," said Klaus. "Besides, I want to see the Quagmires again."

"Quigley," Sunny reminded Violet.

"All right," said Violet. "I found some flare guns and Verdant Flame Devices in the equipment room. If I fire those from outside, I can spell the message 'OK' in the sky."

"You can take diving suits and go down the secret underwater passage to the sea," Dewey suggested. "It would be easy to fire flares from there."

The Baudelaires followed this suggestion and then spent the rest of the day back in the catalog. They went to bed on cots in the kitchen, exhausted after being without sleep for so long.

Dewey shook them awake very early Thursday morning, "Wake up, Violet! Wake up, Klaus and Sunny! Have a cup of tea to help you wake up. We need to get to the roof."

The Baudelaires drank the tea, which was bitter as wormwood and sharper than a two-edged sword. Then they sleepily followed Dewey to the hotel rooftop. It was barely dawn and no sunbathers were here yet. They looked out to sea and saw a large blimp-like flying machine floating toward the hotel. It was badly damaged and losing altitude as it flew.

"The self-sustaining hot-air mobile home!" exclaimed Violet.

The flying machine landed on the roof, deflating almost completely as it did. Out of the machine came Kit, Hector, Captain Widdershins, Phil, the Quagmire triplets, Fernald, and Fiona. The Baudelaires greeted them all with hugs.

"Thank you for your message," said Kit. "It gave us the courage to fight harder and defeat the eagles before they could bring down the Deus Ex Machina."

"I'm so glad," said Dewey, hugging Kit. "Everything is going right."

But Dewey was mistaken. Sometimes it's better for things to go wrong early, because it prevents worse problems later. For example, it's better to get stuck in an elevator than to ride it without problems into the clutches of lurking villains. It's better to taste the sour frosting of a lemon-chiffon birthday cake and throw it away before the bomb inside explodes. The situation that was about to develop in the hotel was like that. 


	5. Trial Doesn't Stay Safe

**Chapter 5**

The Baudelaires had a brief reunion with their friends. Everyone chattered at once.

Fiona told Klaus, "I'm so sorry I hurt you, Klaus. I shouldn't have changed sides -- I've regretted it a hundred times since. Stepfather wasn't even really missing, just called away on an urgent V.F.D. mission."

"Aye," said Captain Widdershins. "But I forgive you, Fiona, and I hope Klaus will too. Aye?"

Klaus considered for a moment, then nodded. "Aye."

"It's so good to see you again, Quigley," said Violet.

"I wish I had been there to meet you in the taxi," said Quigley.

"What happened out there?" asked Sunny.

"We don't have time to go into details now," said Kit. "The trial is about to begin."

"Everyone will be blindfolded except the High Court judges themselves," said Dewey as they went back down in the elevator. "That's to enforce the idea that justice is blind, literally."

"Scalia," said Sunny, which meant, "The literal interpretation doesn't make sense."

"It's an advantage in your case," said Dewey. "You can join the crowd without fear of being recognized."

The whole group donned blindfolds and awkwardly felt their way to seats.

"Count Olaf, how do you plead?" asked Justice Strauss.

"I'm preposterously innocent," said the Count.

Next, Justice Strauss called for evidence to be submitted, and a huge rush of people came to the front with all sorts of objects, everything from photographs to hospital records to ruby-encrusted blank pages to the jammed harpoon gun to somebody's mother (this last item was a mummified body contributed by a young man named Norman).

Testimony began and Count Olaf was asked for his story. All he said was: "I'm innocent, I-N-A-S-E-N-T."

Witnesses were called, and they gave testimony about Olaf's crimes including kidnapping, murder, arson, impersonation, bad guardianship, fortune-stealing, littering, and jaywalking. It was fascinating in a horrible sort of way.

The Baudelaires noticed that Justice Straus did almost all the talking, except for occasional murmurs and whispered questions from the other Justices.

"Having one Justice as a spokesperson must just be the way they handle things," Klaus remarked to Violet.

"Finally, there was the incident of the sugar bowl," said the last witness.

"Can the sugar bowl be produced?" asked Justice Strauss.

"Yes," said a taxi driver well-known to the author. "I've been keeping it for safety but now I'll submit it as evidence."

One of the other Justices spoke aloud for the first time, in a deep voice that was very familiar to the Baudelaires, "Now that all the physical evidence has been submitted, the Justices will retire to a private room to examine it."

"While you are waiting, please enjoy some special hors d'oeuvres prepared by a prominent social hostess," said the second Justice in a hoarse, high-pitched voice the Baudelaires also recognized.

"Is the cocktail party starting?" Vice Principal Nero asked. "I want to get my violin."

"I have a large bag of valuables for metric measurement, bought with my loo-- I mean to say, with my life savings," said Mrs. Bass.

"Where's the banana buffet?" asked Mr. Remora.

"No, this is just a snack break, a foretaste of the cocktail party," said the deep-voiced Justice. "The trial is still in session so do not remove your blindfolds under penalty of contempt of court."

"Mmmmm!" said Justice Strauss. 

People began passing around plates of hors d'oeuvres. "Delicious!" one woman said.

"The original recipe called for mushrooms stuffed with crow meat," Esmé explained, "I substituted chicken but I think you will find them just as effective."

"I know those voices," said Violet to Quigley. "Don't you? It's the woman with hair and no beard and the man with a beard and no hair."

"I recognize them, too," said Klaus to Fiona.

"Let's peek," said Sunny.

"Let me do it," said Quigley. "I'm not wanted by the police so I'll get in less trouble if we're wrong."

"I'll peek too," said Fiona.

Quigley peeked and an instant later he cried out, "Two of the High Court Justices are notorious villains. They've gagged Justice Strauss, and Count Olaf is helping them steal the evidence, including the sugar bowl!"

"You're in contempt of court!" cried the woman with hair and no beard.

"Justice Strauss isn't gagged, just enjoying a toffee," said the man with a beard and no hair.

Fiona looked around the room and gasped. "There's a bigger problem. The hors d'oeuvres were made with deadly Medusoid Mycellium mushrooms!"

Suddenly, all over the room, people began to cough.


	6. Ending Isn't Happy

**Chapter 6**

The Baudelaires immediately tore off their blindfolds. The room was in chaos, with people coughing and gasping everywhere. Olaf and the justices had disappeared into the hotel manager's office, taking with them the sugar bowl and all the flammable evidence. Esme, Carmelita, and the carnival-freak henchmen (still blindfolded but also wearing surgical masks to avoid breathing in spores) were still in the room passing out plates of hors d'oeurves to those foolish enough to ignore Fiona and Quigley's warnings.

"We have to get the sugar bowl back!" said Kit. "It contains a powerful concentrated antidote for Medusoid poisoning, among other things."

Dewey and the Baudelaires were still breathing normally, since the bitter tea they had drunk that morning gave them some resistance, but the rest of their party had begun to cough.

"It looks like it's up to us," said Klaus.

"We need a weapon," said Dewey. "The villains may be armed."

"They left the useless harpoon gun on the evidence table," said Violet. "I'm the one who jammed it and I know how to unjam it."

"I know how to use harpoons," said Dewey. "Sometimes I've had to fend off sharks from the underwater catalog."

Violet quickly unjammed the gun and gave it to Dewey. All of them rushed into the manager's office. Olaf, the man with a beard and no hair (a.k.a. Justice Screwtape) and the woman with hair and no beard (a.k.a. Justice Scylla) were there.

"I've triumphed!" boasted Olaf. "I've destroyed the V.F.D!"

Olaf did seem to have triumphed, at least at that moment. All the evidence was piled up in the middle of the room, and Olaf had poured onto it the inflammable liquid he had stolen from the unlocked laundry room. In one hand he held a matchbook and in the other the sugar bowl.

The crooked judges stood by an open window. Beside them on the floor was the body of Justice Strauss, shot with the silenced revolver that Justice Scylla still held in her hand.

"Light the evidence, Olaf, and then we'll escape out the window," ordered Justice Screwtape. "The authorities have surrounded the building but they'll let us pass, and you too since we'll vouch for you."

"Hold it!" shouted Dewey, and pointed the harpoon gun at them.

"You hold it," said Justice Scylla, pointing her revolver at him.

"We appear to be in a Mexican stand-off," said Justice Screwtape, using a phrase which here means that the two sides were covering each other with weapons.

Olaf didn't let this stop him. With the skill of an expert arsonist he tore out a match, lit it, and flicked it into the pile of evidence in a single lightning movement of one hand. It burst into flame.

"No!" cried Dewey. "I wanted to catalog that evidence!"

"Spoken like a true librarian," Olaf mocked. "No wonder Kit prefers me to you. Your fiancee's baby is more likely mine than yours, you know."

Dewey gave a scream of love-triangle-fueled rage and shot Olaf with the harpoon gun. Unfortunately, this broke the Mexican stand-off to Dewey's disadvantage. Justice Scylla used the opportunity to shoot Dewey before he could ready another harpoon, killing him instantly.

When Olaf was harpooned the sugar bowl he was holding went flying. It shattered on the floor and several of the V.F.D. research notes it contained went into the fire and were lost forever. But Sunny grabbed up the largest piece, containing dried apple bits and a few vital pages of notes.

"Stop that baby!" shouted Justice Screwtape. "She's got most of the sugar bowl!"

"I can't get a good line of fire with the pile of evidence in the way," said Justice Scylla.

The Baudelaires fled the room as the Justices worked their way around the spreading flames. Back in the main room, they paused for a moment to hand the sugar bowl fragment to Kit.

"Lie low and hide this until the Justices pass," Violet told Kit quickly. "Then give the antidote to everyone you can. We're getting out using the underwater catalog passage. Tell our friends to meet us in the basement."

The children ran to the elevators, but Sunny said, "Not safe! Use stairs."

They ran down the stairs to the basement but found the fire had already burned through the floor above them. The flames blocked their way to room 020.

"What now?" said Klaus. "We can't go out the main doors. We're wanted fugitives. The police will trust the judges more than us and turn us over to them."

"The roof," said Violet. "Maybe I can get the Deus Ex Machina flying again."

They ran up the stairs, again avoiding the dangerous elevator. It was well that they did, because the tampering with the elevator cable that someone had done on Tuesday finally caused it to break after two days of use. Elevators have a fail-safe mechanism which causes the elevator to get stuck between floors when the cable breaks, rather than plunge to the bottom. (Fail-safe does not mean that a device cannot fail, but that it is safe when it fails. The one time when an elevator fail-safe is not safe is when the hotel is on fire. That is what the man with a beard and no hair and the woman with hair and no beard discovered when they tried to use the elevator to pursue the Baudelaires.)

On the roof, they discovered that someone had slashed up the self-sustaining hot-air mobile home.

"There's no way to repair it before the fire gets to us," said Violet. "But I can use the balloon pieces to rig a drag chute onto Carmelita's boat in the swimming pool."

Violet worked on this as the fire continued to spread and devour the hotel.

"I hope people get out," said Klaus. "Especially our friends. We made a huge mistake telling them to come back into this deathtrap."

"They can get out the main doors," said Violet. "They aren't wanted by the police like us. But I was hoping some of them would figure out to come to the roof."

The only one who did was Kit. "I handed off the antidote to the others and came to help you," she said.

"It's time to go," said Violet. "We can't wait any longer."

They launched the boat from the rooftop and managed to land safely in the water using the drag chute and sails.

"All our hopes have gone up in smoke, just as I feared," said Kit.

"Where go now?" asked Sunny.

"There's an island I know of with a V.F.D. colony," said Kit. "We can hide and be safe there a year or two while V.F.D. regroups. They make great gourmet meals there, like oysters Rockefeller. It will be a good place to raise my baby."

"I hope the Medusoid poison didn't hurt your baby," said Violet.

"The apple antidote could have been a worse for the baby, but I happen to know your parents created a formula which prevents that problem. In fact, the baby is likely to turn out a super-genius now, like Sunny."

"They did experiment on me?" asked Sunny in shock.

"In a way, yes, but it was perfectly safe and you turned out fine," said Kit.

The Baudelaires realized there was still much they didn't know about their parents and the V.F.D. But now, escaping to safety with Kit, they might finally get some answers. Unfortunately, the island was not quite as safe a destination as Kit thought. But that's another story.

The End


End file.
